May 30, 2007, 11:00 GMT
Hanoi - Vietnamese internet users are suffering slower service after ocean-going thieves stole at least 11 kilometres of fiber-optic cable from the sea floor and sold it for scrap, a Vietnamese telecommunications executive confirmed Wednesday.
'The cable was cut and stolen in March of this year,' said Lan Quoc Cuong, deputy director of Vietnamese telecom firm VTI, which is part owner of the stolen cable. 'It is very serious for our system.'
Vietnamese telecommunications officials say the scrap sellers have severed one of two undersea lines which provide some 82 per cent of Vietnam's telecommunications bandwidth, including internet and telephone service.
Authorities have not discovered who initially cut the cable. But last Wednesday, police in the southern coastal town of Vung Tau said they captured a boat carrying 60 tons of salvaged fiber-optic cable.
The previous day, they had arrested those on board three other boats carrying a total of 40 tons of salvaged cable. All four boats allegedly belonged to the same man, a Vung Tau resident.
According to Vietnamese press reports Wednesday, the country's defence ministry signed a contract last August with several companies to salvage undersea copper cables left over by the former government of South Vietnam, which fell to northern communist forces in 1975.
The reports said some of the companies apparently went on to 'salvage' the operational fiber-optic cables.
Police say they have broken up five rings selling some 500 tons of illegally salvaged cable since the beginning of this year.
But Cuong said the fiber-optic cable seized by police in Vung Tau does not match the cable owned by VTI, and must have come from a different severed line.
VTI's Cuong said finding the cable would have been difficult for the thieves. 'The cable is located in different locations and at different depths,' he said. 'Maybe, while using an anchor, they found the cable by accident and started cutting it.'
Cuong said fixing the cable will cost 2.6 million dollars. It is expected to take almost three months.
Experts say that if its second undersea cable were cut, Vietnam would suffer severe restriction of its international telecommunications.
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